Hey, it’s Rafic.
Welcome back to Peak Performance Insider.
We’ve all felt it.
A client pushes harder than expected.
A meeting goes sideways.
Deadlines pile up faster than you can manage.
Your body reacts before your brain does — faster heart rate, tight shoulders, shallow breathing.
Take tennis. At the recent US Open, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner showed what resetting looks like under pressure. Miss a shot, double-fault, momentum swinging the wrong way — and yet they’d pause, bounce the ball, breathe, and start fresh.
And it’s no different at work. Because the real test of leadership isn’t whether stress shows up — it’s how fast you can reset when it does.
That’s the edge.
📌 Today’s Agenda
✅ Why pattern interrupts help you calm down fast
✅ What athletes can teach us about staying steady under pressure
✅ Practical resets you can use in real workplace moments
✅ Why calm spreads across teams
First time reading?
🔗 Best Links - My Favorite Finds
🧠 Personal Growth & Mindset
🔹 Unlocking Mental Strength: Taking Responsibility, Letting Go, and Moving Forward | Practical ways to reset your mindset and break negative loops.
👥 Leadership & Influence
🔹 Teams That Prioritize Either Learning or Performance Perform Better | Why balance helps teams handle pressure without burning out.
📈 Productivity & Habits
🔹 3 Questions to Ask If You Get Confusing Feedback | A reset framework for turning stress-inducing feedback into clarity.
💪 Health & Wellness
🔹 Types of Fatigue | Why not all fatigue is the same, and how to know which kind you need to recover from.
✍️ Deep Dive: The Power of the Reset
Stress isn’t the enemy. It’s your body doing exactly what it was built to do.
Here’s what happens: a problem lands on your plate. Within seconds, the sympathetic nervous system flips on — adrenaline surges, heart rate climbs, breathing gets shallow, muscles tense. A little later, cortisol rises to keep you on high alert.
That surge is supposed to get you moving, fast. It’s the fight-or-flight system that once helped our ancestors survive real danger.
The difference today? We’re not running from predators. We’re staring down inboxes, deadlines, and supply chain fires. The stress switch still flips, but without a clear release, it can stay on too long — leaving us stuck in overdrive.
That’s why the reset matters. A reset is a pattern interrupt — a way of signaling to your nervous system: you’re safe, you can stand down.
When you do that, the parasympathetic system — the body’s natural recovery mode — steps back in. Breathing deepens. Muscles unclench. Blood pressure steadies. Cortisol levels drop.
This is homeostasis — equilibrium. And leaders who can bring themselves back there quickly don’t just protect their own health — they steady the room.
Here are four ways to get there in real time:
🌬️ The Breath Reset
When stress spikes, breathing goes shallow and fast — which tricks the body into staying on high alert. The physiological sigh (two short inhales, one long exhale) lowers carbon dioxide in the blood, slows the heart, and cues the parasympathetic system to kick in.
I leaned on this in the oilfield. We had a demanding client who expected a fracking stage report within five minutes — or I’d be kicked off site. The pressure was suffocating. I remember taking that double inhale and long exhale before typing reports. It gave me just enough clarity to block out the noise and get it done.
🏃 The Movement Reset
Adrenaline is designed to prime the body for action. If you sit still, it lingers longer. Movement — even just a short walk, shaking out tension, or standing to stretch — burns off excess adrenaline and helps cortisol return to baseline.
In the field, I used to step out of the chaos, walk the site once, and come back sharper. Ninety seconds of movement is often all it takes to reset your state.
🧭 The Focus Reset
Stress scatters attention — your prefrontal cortex gets hijacked by survival mode. Offloading thoughts interrupts that spiral.
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Name it. Say: “I’m overloaded.” Labeling reduces amygdala activity.
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Dump it. Write everything down. This unloads working memory.
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Pick one. Circle the single next step. That re-engages the prefrontal cortex and restores clarity.
I used this during a grocery delivery launch for a major shareholder. The stakes were huge: if the customer wasn’t home, the driver had to build an insulated box on the spot, layer ice packs in a precise way, and store the order perfectly. High stakes, no room for error. Instead of spinning out, I broke it down: train the driver, set crystal-clear expectations, follow up in real time. Step by step. The focus reset kept pressure from hijacking the outcome.
🤝 The Check-In Reset
Humans are wired for social buffering — supportive interactions literally lower cortisol. A calm, steady check-in spreads through a group faster than panic does.
After a missed SLA, I’d gather the team and say: “Here’s where we are. Here’s the next step.” Not sugarcoating. Not pep talk. Just composure. People borrow calm from whoever leads.
Resets don’t erase pressure. But they stop stress from hijacking the controls. And the more you practice them, the faster your body learns the way back to equilibrium.
⚡️ Work With Me
Stress has a way of coming home with you.
From the site, the office, or the warehouse floor — it doesn’t always stop when the workday does.
In coaching, we keep it simple.
We look at the pressure points in your world,
and explore quick resets you can lean on when things get heavy.
I’m opening space for 1 new client before the end of this month.
📩 If today’s newsletter resonated, send me an email at [email protected] and we can see together whether coaching feels like the right next step for you.
🎯 That's a Wrap
Your body will always react first — stress is hardwired.
The difference is what you do next.
Athletes reset because if they don’t, they lose the match.
Leaders reset because if they don’t, pressure takes over.
And pressure doesn’t care about your title.
That’s why the leaders who last aren’t the ones who avoid stress — they’re the ones who train the reset.
Until next time,
— Rafic Osseiran
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